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I need some help with JavaScript stuffs. Most of my life I made compiled software(C,C++,VB,etc.) but in past 2 months start developing of online application with PHP and ajax platform called phpLiveX. Whole develop time I used google chrome to test this app and everything works just fine, after finishing and before going public, last step is to check how everything works in other browsers.

Results are (percentage working fine):

  • Chorme: 100%
  • Opera: 100%
  • Safari: 100%
  • FireFox 3, 4: 90%
  • IE 7, 8: 30%

I found that this is common problem, but like I said, since i don't have too much experience with JavaScript I don't know exactly where from to start? Mostly functions that executing fail are very ordinary functions for displaying results (ajax) or simple works with user interface (on click disable enable buttons, or on click fire ajax execution etc)

So what is best "procedure" start debugging every function that fail in every browser one by one, or are there some common places and stuffs that I need to check first, or something else?

Please give me your advices. Thanks!

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This is a very broad question. It would help everyone out if you could post some specific examples of what exactly is going wrong for that 30 and 10% that doesn't work. In short, yes, you should debug every function for every browser, or use a library instead of rolling your own functions. – Jordan 2 hours ago
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I know it's too late, but never treat testing in other browsers as the "last step". Do it for every new feature. – Box9 2 hours ago

2 Answers

up vote 1 down vote

Better you use JS framework like jQuery, mootools, which allows developers to write single code for multiple browsers, And internally it handles the browser compatibility issue. While using these frameworks you will find your application is compatible to even IE6 which has become a big pain for developers
I would not recommend you to use native JS for development,


In short these framework will directly absorb your all worries of browser compatibility issues

Actually you should first test on IE 6 if thats working then you can directly assume every thing will work fine :)

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up vote 0 down vote

i use fire fox and fire bug to make sure that my js is not throwing any errors.

IE 9 has included developer tools now too.. It can check backwards comparability and has some debugging for js (press f12 i think.)

Chrome also has its own built in version which rocks.. You can find that by right clicking the page and choosing inspect element and then choosing the scripts tab

Hope this gives you a good place to start looking at debugging your code.

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Thanks everybody on fast and very useful response. I didn't use framwork like dojo or mootols because I tought that from some specified resons it is better to do 'native' JS, anycase thanks for suggestions. It was only imprtant to me that ajax framework (phpLiveX) works in every browser and it works, and to keep everything very 'light',so whole application which is very complex with many functions is realy fast, when user login/open app, it is less than 40kB to load everything, JS,ajax framweork, windows ,css etc... – Simon 54 mins ago
Now I started with debug, and first problem is IE7 and IE 8 they stop application loading on some function that I found that works in all browser for menu creating, line of code where all other browser do correctly and IE7/8 stops is: 'document.getElementById(...)' is null or not an object' what should be some solution for this? – Simon 49 mins ago
and code is: 'if (document.all && document.getElementById(nav).currentStyle) {' – Simon 47 mins ago

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